Video Tape of Abusive Cop is a Wake Up Call for all Police (VIDEO)

The officer is heard threatening to jail the driver on fabricated charges.

Shot from the camera that recorded the exchange between the driver and the police sergeant. Courtesy: YouTube

(SALEM, Ore.) - A video camera inside of a car was used recently to capture a loud and threatening confrontation between the driver and a police officer in St. George, Missouri. The officer threatened to jail the driver on fabricated charges.

Police consider it a case of entrapment, while others consider say the recording is proof of what life can really be like for a driver during a late night traffic stop in this country.

20-year old Brett Darrow of St. Louis, Missouri is the driver who placed a video camera in his car. He posted it online Saturday.

"I wanted everybody to see that this kind of stuff does happen," Darrow said. "I thought if I just go to the chief or whatever, it would just get swept under the rug."

The video doesn't show much, but the tape's audio is fairly clear, and the loudest aspect is one irate police officer named Sgt. James Kuehnlein.

And while "entrapment" may be an over-the-top assessment, it seems clear that Darrow is leading the officer to his fate, which was a suspension without pay as the investigation continues. Kuehnlein threatens Darrow in a number of ways, and those threats include making up charges to arrest him over. It is fairly clear during that part of the video that this police sergeant is willing to cross the legal line in order to have control of the situation.

But when he initially approaches the car Darrow is driving, Kuehnlein sounds reasonable. He asks Brett Darrow what he is doing, and explains that he is suspicious because a number of car burglaries happen in the parking lot he pulled into at 2:00 AM.

Still, the officer seems to have very little control over his anger, and his threats to concoct charges against the driver are unmistakable.

This tape should serve above all things as a reminder for police officers who make statements that could end their careers.

There are times during the recording that he sounds somewhat reasonable. In fact, this police sergeant may have been blowing smoke, perhaps he had no intention of actually arresting the driver at all. But he used threatening tactics against a citizen who was educated and aware of his rights, and that is a bad situation for an officer of the law who must convince a judge in the future that he is a credible person.

When the video was posted on Google Video and YouTube on the Internet, brought more than 400 telephone calls to St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig. Most of the callers were outraged that an officer had made the threatening statements.

"I was very displeased when I saw the actions on the video," Uhrig said. "My officers are not trained and taught to act like that." Chief Uhrig put Sgt. James Kuehnlein on unpaid suspension pending further investigation, but he also made comments about Darrow "baiting" his officer. He added that the officer's actions were not justified, insisting that the episode does not represent his department.

The image of police in this country took a beating during the civil rights era, as did the people of color who tried to assert their rights as Americans in the south. Then televised images of police beating protesters, often very young people, angered Americans and added more fuel to the fire. Groups like the Rolling Stones wrote songs like "Heartbreaker" that decried police abuse and shootings.

The Reagan era saw a resurgence of respect for police and other public servants, and that trend has continued with shows like "COPS" which glorify what are often the heroic actions of police officers. The age of high technology has also played a part in keeping police up to date, even on the cutting edge of technology.

These also can all be viewed as reasons that police should behave more appropriately in this day and age than this officer did.

Time will tell how the relationship between police behavior and high tech video equipment develops. The advent of YouTube and other video services has definitely risen the volume of the common man. It is every citizen's right to mount a video camera in their car if that is what they wish to do, perhaps that knowledge alone is all some officers need to know.

Video courtesy of YouTube.com

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with almost twenty years experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist and reporter. Today, in addition to his role as a war correspondent in Afghanistan where he spent the winter of 2006/07, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated only with Google News. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com